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Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324 Page 67686970717273747576777879808182838485868788899091 of 592
Let's hold that for just a second. A couple of things occur to me. First of all, you're talking --
'51, '52. I come to 1199 in '54, in September '54, so I'm there. I may have upped my date. I have started too early, because I left in '54. I don't think I was in 65 more than two years, at the most, and maybe two years before, so it may be '50 that I first start in the labor movement, closer to that, '49, '50.
So you come into the labor movement at the very point at which it's under a fierce attack?
I'm in department stores at the time of the Wallace campaign, so I'm there in '48.
Okay.
Because I'm there in the Wallace campaign.
Okay. So that is the period, at a time when the unions are being driven out, there's a fight over the Marshall Plan.
Yes.
The left is being isolated.
But remember, 65 is like an island. It still has its membership and its strength.
How big was it?
At that time, maybe 65 was around fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, maybe. It's a big union, it's an important union. It's not an industry. A department store could have been, but they never made it there. Michaelson and Livingston couldn't get along, so Michaelson pulled the department store people away.
I want to talk about that, but maybe next time. You speak, though, still even as if the Taft-Hartley stuff isn't even happening. What is the impact?
It's happening. It's happening. I remember votes on signing the affidavits in 1250, that the members supported the union, not to sign it.
[END OF SESSION THREE]
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